Sooner or later, there's going to come a loud whooshing sound from the Bronx. It'll be Yankees general manager Brian Cashman exhaling.

On Tuesday, right-hander Masahiro Tanaka played catch for a second straight day, and he's scheduled for another soft-toss session on Thursday. But Cashman remains wary and insists that, even with a steady stream of good news that would take Tommy John surgery off the table, Tanaka won’t be back before September.

“I’m happy the early return on rest and two throwing days on Tanaka have gone well,” Cashman said via the New York Post following Tanaka’s session, which was 50 flat-surface throws at 60 feet, up from 25 on Monday.

Cashman, who said Tanaka "increased the intensity a bit" on the throws Tuesday, revealed that the Yankees have a timeline for the recovery, but he wouldn't share it.

“I’m not going to say it,” Cashman said. “We’ll take this day-by-day. He’s in one of those situations where every day you hold your breath, hoping it’s a good day. The more of those that come, the better it will be for us."

But Cashman worries that any one throw could be the ultimate setback.

“Hopefully he can get on the mound at some point and really let loose and start stretching out to prepare for starts and that’s when I’ll start worrying less about it," he said. "Right now, he’s still in that yellow flag mode of caution.”

Is September was the earliest Tanaka could return?

“Definitely,” Cashman said.

With $155 million invested in Tanaka, pitching coach Larry Rothschild told the Post the anxiety will never leave completely.

“It’s always going to be in the back of your mind, no matter what,” he said. “Hopefully, we worry about it for seven or eight years.”